Stationary Energy Plan (2010)

The plan is to provide 100% of Australia’s electricity from renewables, using mostly wind and solar generators, geographically dispersed around an improved national grid. It allows for electricity demand in 2020 to be 40% greater than in 2008, sufficient to replace all fossil fuel use, including heating and transport as they move to electricity. The plan shows that this is technically feasible and affordable, will improve grid reliability and can be completed within a decade using commercially available technology.

The plan:

Build electricity generators using “concentrating solar thermal with heat storage” technology to supply about 58% of Australian electricity. These generators use sunlight to heat molten salt. The molten salt stores the heat, which can then be used, as needed, to boil water which drives steam turbines generating electricity. This is established technology, already used overseas, at the Gemasolar plant in Spain, and the Crescent Dunes plant in Nevada USA. They generate electricity on demand day or night, providing a secure energy supply.

Build wind turbines to supply about 39% of the electricity

Use hydroelectricity and the burning of crop waste to supply the remaining 2% of electricity

Generates 325TWh per year, compared with around 200TWh per year now

Upgrade the national electricity grid, joining several now separate grids and using HVDC

Construction spans over ten years

Cost of implementing the plan

BZE’s initial cost estimate was:

$ 370 billion over a ten-year period,

$8 per household per week.

The average $37 billion a year is about 3% of Gross Domestic Product.

About the same as our spending on defence.

A later cost estimate in 2014 puts the cost 10% lower because:

the expected demand for electricity has reduced since 2010 (except in Queensland and WA where a vast amount of electricity are used for liquefying LNG), and

the expected electricity generation from domestic solar panels has increased.

The cost in 2017 will be even less, as the cost of renewables has dropped amazingly.

Modelling of the reliability of power supply

Our research included detailed modelling to guide the planned mix of generators and storage. The modelling was based on hour-by-hour data, from recent years, for electricity demand, available wind and available sunlight. It confirmed that the planned system was sufficient to reliably meet the electricity demand.

Independent research reaches similar conclusions

Since the release of the Stationary Energy Plan in 2010, two independent studies reported similar findings as the BZE research.

Researchers from the University of New South Wales did a simulation study, (Elliston, Diesendorf, and MacGill: 2011). This showed that commercially available technologies could generate renewable electricity to meet 100% of Australian 2010 demand.

Benefits of this strategic investment

This strategic investment would:

Avoid the fuel costs of future electricity generation from coal, gas and diesel

Decrease the cost to Australia of petrol, diesel and gas used for transport, as electric transport increases

Reduce the costs, to electricity generators, of any future price on carbon dioxide emissions

Reduce the health hazards associated with pollutants from coal and oil, and

Reduce the use of limited water resources

Reduce the impacts of climate change, as similar measures are adopted around the globe

Praise from Malcolm Turnbull at the launch

At the launch in 2010, the now Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, said:

“I believe our long-term global goal is to, very substantially, reduce our emissions, a goal that will require almost all of our energy to be produced from zero, or very near zero, emission sources … The work they [Beyond Zero Emissions and the Melbourne Energy Institute] have done is important. … It provides the most comprehensive technical blueprint yet for what our engineers, our scientists can begin to do for us tomorrow. … A zero emission future … is absolutely essential if we are to leave a safe planet to our children and the generations that come after them.”